The Level Lifter Challenge - A MathFactLab Game

The Level Lifter Challenge: A Fun Team-Based MathFactLab Game

To add a little competitive excitement to MathFactLab sessions, my students compete each day in a game we call the 'Level Lifter Challenge'.

It's a very simple game:

1. Draw a T-chart headed with the name of each class or group.
2. When students level-up (pass a Level Lifter), they put a tally under their class' or group's name on the T-chart.
3. The class/group with the most level-ups wins.

If you teach just one class, you could divide the class into teams. If you teach multiple classes, you can have them compete (as I do) against each other. Competition can run on a daily or weekly basis.

When I run it, the winning class each day earns two minutes toward an end-of-week bonus recess, but any small prize will do. (In truth, the competition itself gets the students more excited than the prize.)

What I particularly like about this game is that the goal is growth and the students encourage each other's success. They year, my classes are so into it that whenever anyone levels-up, the whole class claps.

Alternative Version

A colleague of mine runs the game somewhat differently. She uses the Assign button and tracks completed activities over the course of the week. At the end of the week, she downloads this data to a .csv file (Students tab under 'Actions' button) and has the spreadsheet add up the totals for each class.

This article was written by Mike Kenny, founder of MathFactLab and fifth-grade teacher.